Forum:Am i the only one that thinks that organics need to change?
i wouldnt go as far as to say that i side with the catalyst/reapers but after the extended cut when i really thought about it, this whole mess is the result of something stupid an organic did. some organic race created the catalyst with apparently no restrictions. another thing i noticed that had nothing to do with the extended cut was that every major conflict in the series involves only organics, or was started by organics. the first contact war was turians and humans. the rachni wars were between council races and the rachni. the krogans helped with that and then in return they got the genophage and a bomb on their planet. but the krogan rebellions show that they were getting out of control anyway. we learn from javik that the protheans were basically just bullies that shunned or killed those that wouldnt join them. this entire cycle is the result of an organic race making a bad decision. the only time in the entire series that a synthetic life form was hostile towards an organic life form was in self defense or because it didnt want to be enslaved... by organics. even that money funneling AI on the citadel in the first game was questioning its existence and merely wanted to make contact with its own kind. the quarians started the geth wars out of fear. and then the geth even chose to let the quarians leave when they could have destroyed them because the geth said that they couldnt understand the repercussions of wiping out an entire species. i think the real conflict isnt as simple as just organics vs synthetics. its organics creating artificial life and then trying to destroy it out of fear. organics are creating synthetics and treating them poorly, and then wonder why they act the way they do towards them. organics are creating this conflict and eventually their own enemies. organics basically brought this on themselves. something that is completely ridiculous to me is that despite organics prejudices towards synthetics... they put a synthetic in charge of stopping the conflict. really? how stupid was that? of course its only going to make things worse. because of this i find it funny that organics are portrayed solely as the victims. i think that synthesis is a necessary change or we will continue down this paranoid and destructive path and we will eventually be responsible for our own demise. im not so sure that forcing it on the galaxy like synthesis does is the ideal way to go about it, but i think its better than no change. which is what i think destroy does. it basically reverts the galaxy back to the state it was in before the cycle started. the conflict will arise again. its extremely naive to assume it wont. the history of organic life is an overwhelming amount of evidence that says it will happen again. i think a more ideal scenario would be to basically just turn the cycle off and then let those that want synthesis get it. i dont think it will create perfect peace forever because that is insanely unrealistic, but i do think it represents longer lasting peace than any of the other options. and i think that synthesis is very near where evolution will take us anyway. as now synthesis is forced but i feel like once organics get that perspective most of them would be ok with it, though im sure some will still not. basically what im saying is, i think that choosing destroy only shows that organics are insane and willing to kill what they dont really understand and choose something destructive over something that promotes some kind of peace and understanding. i know this will probably be seen as a pessimistic point of view by most but im just calling it like i see it. organics kind of suck at life, especially when in large groups. i think a change is needed to stop this paranoid and self destructive behavior. if we cant learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it. ---- If you talk to Javik a bit on the Normandy, particularly after you meet Legion (or perhaps his replacement, if you chose a certain option in ME2), you'll see that the synthetic races are not as innocent or benign as you seem to think. It is funny that the Reapers, who, even more than the Geth, represent every organic race's worst fears about synthetics, see synthesis as the ultimate goal (at least according to the Catalyst). Synthesis, or something similar, happened with the Zha and the Zha'til. From his description of that war, it was a hundredfold worse than the Quarian-Geth issue. To me, there is something a bit perverse and wrong about the idea of synthesis. I think that synthesis benefits non-organics far more than it helps flesh-and-blood species. Whatever benefits that organics would receive from synthesis can already be achieved with cybernetic implants, which don't alter the DNA, nor are they hereditary. Now, the synthetics, if fused with organics via the inexplicable Synthesis, seem to gain a lot more: a better form of reproduction, actual evolutionary possibility, a way to truly understand the unpredictable nature of organic minds (all the better to control them). As well as possibly increased resistance to electromagnetic damage, the bane of synthetics in every sci-fi universe. I see Synthesis as the worst possible outcome, as it simply admitting defeat in the face of the unrelenting, merciless, brutality and overwhelming force that the Reapers use to achieve their ends. Control or Destroy are the better choices, in my opinion. Synthesis is simply giving the Reapers exactly what they wanted, and the intentions of a species that sees killing billions as an acceptable means to an end are certainly not benign or in the best interests of any of the galaxy's major species. It is not as if the Reapers presented any ultimatum or declaration of war. --TarquiniusModestus (talk) 01:12, July 22, 2012 (UTC) i dont think that organics actually need any of the physical enhancements that come with synthesis, i think they need the perspective. my train of thought is this, organics create synthetics. its either already an AI and is "shackled" because they dont trust it, or they create something that becomes self aware on its own. in every instance of this happening in the series the organics are being paranoid about what the synthetics MIGHT do. to quote shepard..."im not going to condemn an entire species based on what MIGHT happen." the organics are creating the synthetic life and then shunning or destroying it out of fear. they are unintentionally creating their own enemies. apparently a long time ago despite acting paranoid and fearful of synthetics an organic race built and put one in charge of stopping the conflict. really? how does that make any sense at all? organics are paranoid and self destructive and i think a change needs to happen. the reapers dont want anything, they are tools. the catalyst was created to create and maintain peace between organics and synthetics. i dont see how choosing destroy or control accomplishes anything good. it doesnt change anything, it only continues what was the reason for all of this in the first place. death, destruction, and/or enslavement between organics and synthetics. they are very temporary solutions for a very big problem. i feel like if we were able to see the long term results of choosing the choices, everyone would be very disappointed with destroy because we would see only more of the exact same conflicts between organics and synthetics. as for synthesis yes it is forced, and if it was enslaving the organics in any way then i wouldnt like it. but everyones mind is not changed. everyone still has their individual mind and is capable of making their own opinions and decisions and learning from them. they are still able to shape their own lives. i would imagine that not everyone will like it. but i think that once that perspective is given, most of the organics would be ok with it. i think it represents a necessary change and what will create the longest lasting time of peace between the three choices. nothing will create peace forever as that is about the most unrealistic thing anyone could expect. that will never happen. ever. the cycle needs to stop regardless, but to me destroy and control ARE the cycle. its only doing exactly what the catalyst was doing. if i try to justify genoicide then i sound like the catalyst. destroy literally changes nothing about the galaxy. organics will create synthetics again and the conflict will arise again. i think its EXTREMELY naive to assume it wont. the history of organic behavior is MUCH more than proof that it will happen again. and with control, i just dont think any life form should have that much power. i think the ideal scenario would be to basically just hit the off switch on the cycle and then give everyone a choice on whether or not they want to go through with synthesis. but unfortunately that is not an option. in all honesty, one 30 year old life form just doesnt have the perspective to make this decision. not even a 1000 year old asari would. when i realized that, i made my decision based on the history of life and what has happened between organics and synthetics. and when i started looking at that, it showed me that organics are almost entirely responsible for all of this because of how they act towards the synthetic life they create. “The popular idea, fostered by comic strips and the cheaper forms of science fiction, that intelligent machines must be malevolent entities hostile to man, is so absurd that it is hardly worth wasting energy to refute it. Those who picture machines as active enemies are merely projecting their own aggressiveness. The higher the intelligence, the greater the degree of co-operativeness. If there is ever a war between men and machines, it is easy to guess who will start it.” – Arthur C. Clarke this is basically what im saying and why i think destroy and control are horrible choices. it only proves that organics will continue to do this to themselves and that they havent learned a single thing from all of this. to be honest, im really not surprised that so many people say destroy and control are better options. synthesis isnt the best option there could be, but its better than basically doing what is changing nothing. ---- To the above poster, sorry don't know who you are as you didn't sign your post. You quote Arthur C. Clark in your argument that intelligent, informed machines would be less agressive than organics. However Mr Clark also wrote 2001. In this book (and film) an intelligent, informed machine chose to kill five people in violation of its programming to ensure safety of the flight crew and science team aboard. Why? Not because it was evil, or unintelligent, or uniformed, but because it was the most efficient and logical option at the time. Machines will always choose the most logical and efficient option over any other. In 2001 the mission to Jupiter has a five human and one A.I. operations crew. HAL, the A.I. is the most advanced machine in existence, and unlike the flight crew of the Discovery, Bowman and Poole, has full knowledge of the true objective of the Discovery, to investigate the Monolith in Jupiter orbit. The other three humans, the science team sent to investigate the Monolith are in suspended animation. So what made HAL choose to kill? It was a small conflict in its mission orders and its basic programming. The conflict was that HAL was programmed to provide undistorted facts to humans, yet the mission orders required HAL to conceal the true nature of the mission from Bowman and Poole. Once Bowman and Poole became a problem the most logical and efficient option that HAL could reach was to kill them. Yet HAL also killed the science team, who had been in suspended animation before boarding the Discovery and so had no contact with either HAL or Bowman and Poole. So why did HAL kill them? After all, they had full knowledge of the true mission objectives. Simple. Once they reach the Monolith and the science team revived then they would discover that HAL had killed Bowman and Poole and HAL would have been determined to be malfunctioning and disconnected, and HAL determined that the best success of the mission rested in it completing the mission without the humans. HAL was programmed to be able to achieve the mission objectives even with the entire human crew incapacitated. And so the most efficient and logical option that HAL could reach was to kill the science team. Now it could be argued that the problem was caused by the programming that humans gave to HAL but regardless of what choice that HAL made would require it to violate it's programming. But ultimately it was HALs choice to make, and it chose to kill. HAL could easily have chosen to continue to distort the facts until they reached the Monolith, and at that time the science team would be revived and Bowman and Poole made aware of the true mission objectives. While this is a logical choice it is not an efficient one. Machines are what they are, logiacl and efficient. Organics are what they are, illogical and inefficient. These are diametrically opposing ideals and the only way to resolve this is for one ideal to supercede the other. Which is the nature of the conflict between the two sides. In response to the original post. Yes organics need to change, but so to do synthetics. Maybe the whole point of the synthesis option is to impose order by overwriting the base natures of each faction. It is logical, it is efficient, it preserves all life whether organic or synthetic so would I choose it? In short, No. Why? Because it requires that I impose my beleif on every being in the galaxy, robbing them of their free will. Even while I might accept the idea that it is the right choice for the galaxy I beleive that every being has the right to determine its own future. If synthesis is required to save the galaxy then it will happen in it's own time when every being is ready for it. It need not be imposed upon the galaxy. Also I don't beleive that an individual with free will can ever except an imposed beleif unless they agree with it. So either synthesis robs everyone of free will turning them into mindless automatons or that it will ultimately be unsustainable as individual beings rebel against the imposed beleif.--TSwiftFan1346 (talk) 07:08, August 8, 2012 (UTC) ---- I’ll tackle a number of points. 1. The synthetic bias 2. Conflict 3. The endings. 1. Synthetic bias Firstly, the rachni wars were started by the reapers; they have no reflection on organics’ hostility. Secondly, both organics and synthetics show signs of hostility. Why are you blaming the organics for the catalyst? Sure they were morons who caused all this, but the catalyst is responsible for its own choices. Organics didn’t programme it to commit genocide, it chose to purely because it decided genocide was the logical solution. So reapers/catalyst = hostile synthetic. The money funnelling AI on the citadel? It was going to blow itself up just to spite the organics that found it. The zha'til case is unclear. Either the synthetic zha'til took over the organic zha on their own or they were coexisting (until the reapers caused the takeover). This is either evidence disproving the whole cycle or synthetic hostility. Another example is the geth heretics. They chose to join Sovereign and attack organics. Their later ‘attack’ on the other geth is possibly reaper induced, but otherwise further evidence that synthetics can be hostile too. The problem on each side is fear. Even if the AI doesn’t want war, if it believes organics may attack it, it will attack first. Similarly, organics attack out of fear of a synthetic attack. 2. Conflict The cycle ignores the possibility that conflict is natural. Whether organic or synthetic, conflict happens all the time. However, few conflicts have resulted in extinction. In purely organic cases (e.g. first contact war, krogan rebellions but not the rachni war), some sort of coexistence is usually achieved. An inability to resolve a dispute led to conflict, but understanding often followed. The cycle ignores the possibility that conflict between organics and synthetics is a precondition to peaceful coexistence. 3. Endings All the endings have extreme negative ethical implications. Destroy = Genocide Control = Slavery Synthesis = Non-consensual invasive procedure (or genetic rape, if you want to be dramatic) Beyond that difficult choice, each offers its own solution to the cycle: Synthesis: Mutual understanding (brainwashing for those who view it negatively) Control: Reaper Shepard acts as mediator and peacekeeper Destroy: Rejects the entire cycle as flawed. Feels coexistence is possible (or possibly that extinction is preferable to the above – Saren’s question springs to mind). Coexistence is hardly naive. There are examples to suggest it is possible when prejudice is overcome (EDI, the geth, possibly the zha’til). Plus (as mentioned above) we have no large conflicts which ended with non-reaper related extinction, whether organic or synthetic. Equally, it is possible to believe that no solution can lead to peace (forced synthesis could lead to resentment and further war). A few additional points: "everyones mind is not changed" by synthesis. I’m not so sure, it is certainly possible to view the Extended Cut synthesis as brainwashing. Everyone just seems to think it’s a little too wonderful in those scenes. “organics are portrayed solely as the victims.” Err... No. Certainly not in the geth conflict. 22:00, August 5, 2012 (UTC) i dont think the heretics apply though. they only chose what they did because they preferred that over the continued conflict. the conflict that the organic quarians started. they chose self preservation over a conflict that the quarians kept initiating. as for the money funneling AI, again it was only attempting to free itself as it was originally created by an organic to due illegal things. it just wanted to make contact with its own kind. in all honesty i didnt want to kill it or leave it there, i would have preferred to set it free. as for the rachni, the way i saw that was more as a result of indoctrination. which is only the result of them doing what they were told to do, by a synthetic that an organic race created. which brings me to the catalyst. it chose to solve the conflict in a terrible way, but its not doing it because its evil. its doing it because it has to. because it has to do what it was created to do by organics. organics need to stop attempting to create synthetic life to be slaves or do its bidding. that is the conflict. the quarians were made out to be the victims in the beginning. in the first game thats all we knew. we didnt learn about any non hostile geth until the second game, and then we werent even shown that the quarians started the conflict until the third game. the quarians basically never decided to tell anyone that the war started because of their unwarranted paranoia and fear of the geth. which again shows that the conflict originated because of organics. the zha'til only became hostile when the reapers controlled them. any hostile synthetic behavior that we have seen is either in self defense or is the result of reaper control which all falls back on that organic race creating the catalyst. again, i dont agree with the catalysts methods but it is only doing what it was created to do. it doesnt appear to be able to stop, but rather allow a new solution based on events in the galaxy. which is again why i question the catalyst being a true AI, or being free. it appears to be stuck within the shackles of the race that created it. which again, is not the synthetics fault but rather the organic creators fault. what makes the most sense is to free the catalyst if it is indeed unable to stop, or if it is not a self aware being then it needs to be destroyed. when i really look at it the history of life in this universe points to the organics being the result of all of this. i think many people dont see it this way or wont see it this way is because it paints organics as bad. nobody wants to believe that they are represented in any sort of a negative way. now obviously not all organics are going to behave like this. but as a whole, in large groups... thats what they seem to do. shepard seems to be the one saving grace this cycles organics have. to me choosing destroy, control, or refusing throws all of that out the window and resets the galaxy. i just cant see doing that. i cant see not changing anything after millions of years of this happening. something i think many people dont realize, is that this game lets people be discriminatory and racist. it allows people to decide the fate of an entire race or species based on their behavior. or based on the actions of one member of a species. this is another thing that seems to be solely an organic thing. which only furthers my view that organics NEED to change or this will just keep happening over and over again for who knows how long and may eventually result in the complete extinction of organic life. No, you are not the only one. I to believe organics need to change, I believe the same for synthetics as well, however. As shown throughout the Mass Effect series, synthetics are hardly innocent. The geth and EDI are just an anomaly, most synthetics that achieve sentience end up no better than the Reapers. This is why in Synthesis (in my opinion, it's the best ending and I don't believe it is unethical or morally wrong, certainly not more than Destroy) that synthetics also change (they understand organics). If it was just organics, war would still be inevitable.--Legionwrex (talk) 17:49, August 7, 2012 (UTC) i dont really see any instances of synthetics being anywhere near the same as organics in the way that i described. from what ive seen it always seems to be the result of self defense or because of being controlled or restrained by the shackles of their organics creators. i think the real answer to this lies with the catalyst. is it not really self aware and just doing what it was ceated to do? is it a self aware AI that has to do what it was created to do because of its organic creators? or is it a self aware AI that chose to do all of this on its own? personally i dont think its able to make certain decisions on its own. if so, why would it let destroy or control be an option? it did afterall admit to having to let shepard take control of the reapers if thats what shepard chooses. i never understood why people always called the catalyst "star child" and "god child" as it is not any of these things. its a machine that organics created. there are no gods, atleast not in the way we have come to know them. there is just organics. everything that happens is because of what they create and do to or bring upon themselves. based on what we know now, the race that created the catalyst recognized the conflict between organics and synthetics. then they decided to create what is basically some sort of shackled synthetic to solve the problem... that IS the conflict. organics need to stop creating intelligent synthetic life to be slaves or "servants" so to speak. which is why i think something must change.